Wednesday, April 05, 2017

Recently, the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

Existing civil rights laws protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation, a federal appeals court ruled in a historic nationwide first on Tuesday.
It is a "common-sense reality," the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held, "that it is actually impossible to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation without discriminating on the basis of sex."
Specifically, the court held that the sex discrimination ban in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes a bar on discriminating against gay, lesbian, or bisexual people.

The 8-3 ruling represented a reversal of the court's past decisions on the topic, and makes it the first federal appeals court to rule in favor of protection for sexual orientation-based discrimination under existing federal law.
"[A] person who alleges that she experienced employment discrimination on the basis of her sexual orientation has put forth a case of sex discrimination for Title VII purposes," Chief Judge Diane Wood wrote for the full court.
The Seventh Circuit covers federal lawsuits out of Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin.
The ruling comes on the heels of two other federal appeals court rulings, in which three-judge panels held that prior rulings of the courts made clear that sexual orientation discrimination is not covered under Title VII. Tuesday's ruling, however, was the first time a court had sat en banc — meaning the full court — in hearing such a case. When an appeals court sits en banc, it can review — and reverse — its prior rulings.

If Congress won't rewrite the law, liberals will find a court who will! That's been the M.O. of the Left for decades: packing the bench with wannabe legislators who'll impose the agendas they could never pass democratically. It worked on school prayer, abortion, and marriage, as Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) bragged last year. Now, the Left is using the same playbook on the gender debate -- knowing full well that it's the only way they can force their vision on an unwilling America. Fortunately, there are some judges who agree with us that if the Left wants to change the definition of discrimination, it's asking the wrong branch of government. Unfortunately, those judges aren't in the majority on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. In a mind-boggling decision yesterday, the judges not only stole Congress's job -- they admitted they were doing it!

For years, liberals have tried to pass legislation making "sexual orientation" a protected category under the Civil Rights Act -- first with ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) and then with the "Equality Act." The House and Senate rejected them every time. They recognized, as we do, that sexual orientation wasn't on the minds of legislators 53 years ago when it was trying to weed out prejudice -- and more importantly, it wasn't in the text of the law that passed! No bother, liberals said. We'll just rewrite the policy through our activist courts.

And Tuesday, the 7th Circuit was more than willing to comply. "For many years," Chief Judge Diane Wood admitted, "the courts of appeals of this country understood the prohibition against sex discrimination to exclude discrimination on the basis of a person's sexual orientation." So by her own admission, there's absolutely no justification for rewriting the law. Still, she goes on, it's the court's responsibility to take a "fresh look" at its position. And in doing so, she writes, "we conclude today that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a form of sex discrimination."

FRC is attempting to argue that it disagrees with the court making this decision rather than leaving it up to legislators and Congress. The organization probably is angry over this fact. The rule has the potential to circumvent legislative bodies - places where religious right groups like FRC have success in hindering pro-lgbt laws.

And to me, that's what makes this victory even sweeter. It proves what I said yesterday about why anti-lgbt laws generally fail to get sanction by the courts. Courts are all about fairness and logic, not lies, horror stories, junk science or religious entitlement.

Can the Child Welfare System Handle Trans Children? - The first part in a series by Windy City Times and it illustrates that we have enough issues to deal with in our community without interjections from the religious right. Some transgender children may be getting removed from their homes by child welfare agencies simply because their parents are supporting their identities.

About Me

Alvin McEwen is 46-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.